Archive for the ‘ Publications ’ Category

New Year’s Resolutions 2014

Thursday, January 2nd, 2014

Looking back at 2013, I had many successes. I built on my existing author’s platform, connecting with more users/potential readers on Twitter, Google Plus, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Facebook and Pinterest.

Thanks to the 30 Queries in 30 Days Project and its extension, the 31 Queries in 31 Days Project, I received acceptances from Miracle magazine and Five poetry magazine and secured an editing gig for a series of children’s books.

I published my second non-fiction book, Dedicated Idiocy,  a Kindle-only book, and made progress on my current work-in-progress, Now with Kung Fu Action Grip, a collection of writings about my 3-year-old son.

This year I have two main goals:

1) Complete and publish Now with Kung Fu Action Grip.

2) Complete and publish my new poetry anthology, Owning the Ghosts.

In addition, I want to build on my successes by sticking to three good habits:

3) Post at least once a week on this blog; my blog for my book for older parents, Belated Mommy; my Goodreads author’s blog; and my personal blog at LiveJournal.

4) Write at least one poem a week.

5) Apply to at least one writing job or send at least one submission a week.

In general, I will also be striving to continue to build my author’s platform and to find creative and results-driven ways to promote my published works.


And an exciting update: I learned that I’ve been selected as one of the finalists to be included in the Project REUTSway anthology, from the November YA writing challenge. I will keep you posted on the book as the project progresses!

Update: 31 Queries in 31 Days

Thursday, December 5th, 2013

It’s taken a while, but I’m finally getting some results from the action I took during my 31 Queries in 31 Days project.

Some of the responses have been rejections, such as from “Poetry” magazine and “Literary Mama.”

However, I’m starting to get some good news, too! I was contacted in response to one of the Elance jobs for which I applied, and I’ve just signed a contract to edit and format several short children’s books.

And just last night I learned that two of my poems, “How to Name a Cat” and “For Lack of a Wheelbarrow,” have been accepted by Miracle ezine. I’m very excited about it, because their mission (and feel) is similar to mine at Wild Violet. Plus, these two poems are personal favorites of mine that I’ve been sending to different places in hopes of publication. It’s great to finally place them somewhere.

News now about my November writing challenges. I wrote stories in response to three out of four of the story challenges of Project REUTSway. I was halfway through the fourth story when I had to throw in the towel due to sickness and an emerging migraine.

I didn’t do as well with Nina Amir’s Write Nonfiction in November challenge, mostly because I spent a lot of time promoting two Kindle promotions: one over Philcon weekend for “The Art of Life” and one over the Black Friday-Cyber Monday weekend for “Dedicated Idiocy.”

For the month of December, I’m going to focus on putting together “Now with Kung Fu Action Grip.” Right now, I’m still compiling all the possible material (essays, journal entries and poems about my little Kung Fu Panda). Then I’ll get to the rewriting/editing phase and finally the design phase. While I would have liked to have it ready for the winter holidays, I’m going to shoot instead for January or February, when people will be burning through their gift cards. I intend to put together both ebook and print versions of the book.

I’m also going to try to start blogging here about other subjects that catch my interest, so it’s not just about my writing career and writing tips. If you have any suggestions of things you’d like to see me write about, please share them in the comments!

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